Bush’s FEMA Again Lifting Wrong Finger for Katrina’s Families

by Ana Maria

With Katrina’s 2nd anniversary a week away and eyes glued to following Hurricane Dean’s path, evidence of post-Katrina stress abounds. From short tempers and increased alcohol and drug usage to low expectations that life can ever return to even the worst of pre-Katrina days to people whispering about various friends and family members in good health but who all of a sudden die without warning. In hushed tones, they share with me their various conclusions on the cause of death.

• Katrina took away their will to live.
• The stress of post-Katrina survival got to them.
• When the insurance companies failed to own up to their financial responsibilities to pay on wind policies, it killed ‘em—they checked out.

Mental illness is double the pre-storm levels, rising numbers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and there is a surge in adults who say they're thinking of suicide. . . .

The big surprise: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which typically goes away in a year for most disaster survivors, has increased: 21% have the symptoms vs. 16% in 2006. Common symptoms include the inability to stop thinking about the hurricane, nightmares and emotional numbness.

Katrina victims struggle mentally
USA Today
8.16.07

The nation’s worst natural disaster is playing havoc with our coping mechanisms, and Bush’s FEMA is playing havoc with how they interpret the rules that should afford some much needed funding for mental health services in the Katrina-ravaged area.

An Associated Press story reported “FEMA has refused to assist the institutions that those people were referred to and it has not explained why."

"A government survey released [August 15, 2007] to USA TODAY shows no improvement in mental health from a year ago."

Katrina victims struggle mentally
USA Today
8.16.07

Maybe that’s because FEMA can’t explain the cruel and compassionless policies flowing out of a “you’re on your own” Bush White House philosophy. What is Bush to do? Admit that he only believes in spending taxpayer money on bloated contracts with his friends? Fat chance. Instead, he and his ilk have surrounded themselves with similar conscious-free types whose mission seems to be to spend the least amount as possible when it comes to helping Americans.

FEMA ran its Project Recovery Program as a referral service only, and chose not to provide funding for mental health professionals to counsel Americans temporarily going through this horrific disaster. Not exactly helpful, particularly when Katrina displaced the area’s mental health professionals—just as it has so many others in the hurricane’s aftermath.

This is crazy—then again, so much that the Bush Administration has done is pure madness. Yes, pure madness. FEMA does fund short-term crisis counseling after disasters. That’s right. FEMA has done so for 25 years.

“The Crisis Counseling Program [has] been supported in the past twenty-five years by the Federal government, provides for short-term interventions with individuals and groups experiencing psychological sequelae from Presidentially-declared disasters.”

Well, if that don’t beat all. Here’s an excerpt from a U.S. Government agency website— Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides supplemental funding to States for short-term crisis counseling projects to assist survivors/victims of Presidentially declared major disasters. FEMA supplements, but does not supplant, mental health services traditionally provided by State and local mental health agencies. The Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program (commonly referred to as the Crisis Counseling Program) was first authorized by the U.S. Congress under the Disaster Relief Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-288) and later modified by the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-707). FEMA is responsible for administering the disaster assistance programs of the Stafford Act, including Federal assistance for crisis.

A major disaster, as defined by the Stafford Act, is any natural catastrophe, or regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, which in the determination of the President causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance to supplement efforts and available resources of States, local government, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering caused by the disaster.

So there we have it. FEMA pays for mental health care crisis counseling, but the Bush Administration is apparently playing politics with the tax dollars that could be and should be helping Katrina’s Americans cope with the myriad of Katrina-related mental health problems.

How cruel. How categorically cruel for the Bush Administration to deny access to federal funding when the money can be used for such a critical service for its people. AND this isn’t exactly breaking new ground as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ website explains that disaster crisis counseling programs are part and parcel of what it provides.

Disaster Crisis Counseling Programs are a departure from traditional mental health practice in many ways. The program is designed to address incident specific stress reactions, rather than ongoing or developmental mental health needs (CMHS, 1994). Programs must be structured and implemented according to Federally established guidelines and for a specific period. Emphasis is on serving individuals, families, and groups of people - all of whom share a devastating event that most likely changed the face of their entire community.

Yet, Bush’s FEMA denies funding for this critical service for Katrina’s Americans. This is yet another example of the Bush Administration’s cruel and compassionless core values. Bush talks compassion and walks cruelty. And the impact of Bush’s FEMA policy is evidenced everywhere.

Whether we are adults or children. Katrina has negatively impacted our collective mental health. In Trauma shapes Katrina's kids, USA Today wrote

New Orleans pediatrician Corey Hebert dreads the rainy weeks when he knows he'll face about 20 sobbing, screaming children in full-blown panic attacks.

"They can't be calmed because they're terrified another hurricane is coming," he says. Parents bring them in because there are no therapists around.

In Mississippi, FEMA is taking away $4.5 million of federal dollars that could be used for counseling any aged survivor trying to cope with what many call post-Katrina syndrome. Again, the U.S. government agency website stated

The Crisis Counseling Program is unique in comparison to the mix of Federal programs made available through a Presidential disaster declaration. It is the one program for which virtually anyone qualifies and where the person affected by disaster does not have to recall numbers, estimate damages, or otherwise justify need. The program provides primary assistance in dealing with the emotional sequelae to disaster.

The only thing we’ll have to watch out for is the Bush Administration demanding that the counseling be laced with religious overtones or allowing the federal dollars to go to unqualified professionals, particularly those who support Bush’s desire to mix his religious beliefs with our very secular government. He’ll have us praying his way.

Believe me, down here everyone is praying. The old saying “pray to God and row to shore” has us asking for help with the rowing part, not the praying part.

Good Lord! If folks want religion and government intertwined, they can move to Iran or Saudi Arabia where government and religion are laced together. Don’t care for that? How’s about Afghanistan where the pathetic fools called the Taliban foist their own ignorant macho cruelty upon its prey all under the veil of “religion.” Don’t like the Middle Eastern example? How’s about reviewing recent history in Ireland with two factions of Christianity did its gut level best to shove its own views on the other in rather violent fashion. A rather bloody mess came about, to say the least.

Religion and government don’t mix well. That’s the reason the founders of our nation placed Freedom OF Religion as part of our Constitution’s First Amendment. Freedom of . . . and its implied Freedom FROM. Remember, the founders were often those who had fled Britain’s King George’s religious tyranny. Talk about history repeating itself!

The point here is two-fold. First, our own federal government already has long established post-disaster crisis counseling programs specifically for Katrina-type scenarios. Secondly, we need to be aware of Bush’s propensity to act in a way that laces religion with government—a deadly combination and fundamentally anti-American.

What is beautifully American, however, is the belief that we can make life better for ourselves, our families, our communities, and for others. As Americans, we hold the belief that a new day brings new possibilities to alleviate for ourselves and the next generation the challenges we face today.

Bush and his White House are fundamentally different human beings than the people I run across throughout the Mississippi Gulf Coast and throughout the Katrina-ravaged region who are needlessly suffering at the Administration’s hands. With the sunny optimistic outlook that pegs us as true blue Americans, folks in Katrina Land are trying to fix the problem at hand that Bush’s FEMA has created through failing to offer to our people the mental health services needed.

However, in typical American fashion, folks around here are trying to ensure that FEMA does not force other Americans to suffer needlessly as it has forced Katrina’s survivors to suffer. Ed LeGrand, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, “said he was concerned FEMA's rigid interpretation would affect future disaster recovery programs.”

"I did want to set the stage where if there was a significant disaster elsewhere then maybe the feds would be a little more liberal in how they allow the states use those (mental health) funds in the future."

Throughout the Katrina ravaged Gulf Coast region, folks here fight with the Bush's FEMA and Bush's corporate insurance supporters to get all of them to do right. As they fight, these hard-working Americans who’ve been through hell and back do so not only for themselves and their communities, but also to prevent another town, another family from having to experience this horrific, and unnecessary, hardship.

Lifting a finger to help
While the Bush Administration continues to lift the wrong finger to Katrina’s families, businesses, and communities, the rest of America—that would be you and me—can lift a real finger to provide real help. We can help this situation through letting our fingers do the walking and our mouths do a bit of talking. Yes ma’am and yes sir! You know what that means. It’s political hell raising time! Wooohooo!

FEMA’s Director needs our wise counsel to fund professional counselors in the same way the agency has done after other disasters over the last 25 years. So, let’s give him a piece of our mind and gain a peace of mind for ourselves knowing that today, we helped to make a difference in the Katrina recovery.

Today's political hell raising acivity involves one phone call to FEMA Director Paulison to tell him that FEMA must fund mental health services for the entire Katrina-ravaged region from New Orleans and its surrounding areas across the Mississippi Gulf Coast region and on over to Bayou LeBatre, Alabama.

Lifting our fingers this way can help to outweigh the only finger Bush and his gang seem to lift with any regularity to Americans whether in the Katrina-ravaged region or not. This kind of deliberate, targeted political hell raising is one way to simultaneously lift our own finger to the Bush Administration while helping to create the momentum needed to get the funding we need for mental health services here in Katrina Land. We do this, and things will shift positively for us. On that, I have total faith.

Related articles
Trauma shapes Katrina's kids USA Today 8.16.07
Katrina victims struggle mentally USA Today 8.16.07

Gulf Coast kids of every class affected by Katrina USA Today 8.16.07

Katrina rips up the few roots foster kids had USA Today 8.16.07

Portrait of a Troubled Teen Sun Herald 8.11.07

FEMA takes back $4.5M Mspi wanted for mental health facilities Sun Herald 8.11.07


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Dirt, Dead Bodies, and White House Dirt Bags

by Ana Maria



Cities, counties and parishes (Louisiana’s version of counties) have been fighting with the Office of Inspector General over the federal government’s stinginess when it comes to reimbursing local governments for funds they spent on the Katrina’s clean up. My piece titled When You’re Up to Your Ass in Alligators discussed the incredible financial burden that the locals have undergone because the federal government—i.e. the Bush Administration— is making it unreasonably difficult to obtain the millions and millions of federal tax dollars that are to reimburse these funds.

Perhaps this is the administration’s unstated “hang ‘em out to dry” philosophy in action. Clearly, the net result is to have abandoned Americans in their time of need. Whether the Administration abandoned those who climbed on the roofs after the levees broke in New Orleans or those who climbed through the muck and mud to coordinate the post-Katrina clean up efforts, the way the Bush Administration continues to treat us sure does feel like this is part of the White House’s “leave all citizens behind” philosophy in action.

The stories I hear about how Bush’s FEMA and the Office of Inspector General have treated the officials who had to make do in the worst of circumstances makes my blood boil. The drone-like responses coming from agencies lead by those who rose to power through proclaiming their compassion burn me up. I’ll share a story with you.

Picture it. August 30th 2007. The day after the worst natural disaster our nation has ever seen. No phone system. Cars awash in salt water and totaled. Roadways filled with mounds of debris. No electricity. No uncomtaminated running water. For many, no place to live. Dirt, mud, and sludge many feet deep inside buildings and on the streets.

Let me clarify that. By dirt, I’m not talking about the dry fertile soil that we spread on our lawns or use in flower and vegetable gardens. No, when folks around here tell me their dirt stories, they are referring to what I would term sludge and mud.

Of course, there was no safe water to drink, cook, or bathe and shower in. One of my older brothers told me that for weeks he would fill water bottles and sit them out in the sun with a bit of bleach in them to kill off the germs. At night, his water bottles would be warm, and he would take a make shift shower. Perhaps smelling of bleach, the water was at least clean and uncontaminated.

He recalls that when he saw others he knew were just using water out of the tap, they had developed various whelps and other unsightly skin problems. The water situation went on like this for about three weeks.

Family members, friends, and co-workers were desperate to talk with folks inside the Katrina region. Those here wanted to communicate to the outside world. No phones. No email. No Internet. No roads. No cars. Life was more than tough for all concerned.

Many local jurisdictions found themselves in dire straights in the hours and days after the storm passed. Disparate officials were forced to call the shots because the properly designated ones were unavailable. Maybe they brought their own families out of town or out of state. Maybe they were dead. Maybe they were busy trying to dig themselves out of their destroyed homes. Who knows?

Communication was almost nonexistent. Cell phone usage was restricted to the beach area and that was sporadic coverage, at best. If someone was located miles and miles and miles from the beach without any transportation—which was the case with lots of people, using a cell phone was a luxury to which they had no real access.

You know, one thing that is glaringly obvious is the lack of an emergency communication system. With all of its hoopla about homeland security, the Bush Administration apparently chose not to invest in the country’s back up emergency communication system. So when Katrina knocked down cell phone towers and ripped up traditional phone lines, communicating within the storm-ravaged region became a scarce commodity.

Of course, without electricity to maintain the charge, having even scant cell phone coverage became irrelevant when the batteries ran out. Car chargers, you say? Cars sat for hours in many, many feet of salt water which ruined the engines. Car chargers were out.

Many of us take for granted access to email and the Internet. However, computers were not spared the ravages of Katrina’s destruction either. Even if they had survived, no one had access to the Internet.

In the middle of all the chaos involving dirt and dead bodies, local officials were scattered to the winds.

One public high school, I’ve been told, had about four feet of dirt and sludge inside its buildings. For days on end, local officials—the ones that were here and available—and the Florida Army and National Guard were pulling dead bodies out of the sludge inside of the high school’s buildings.

None of this mattered to one federal official whose compassionless demeanor clearly sent the message that he couldn’t have cared less. We were lucky that the few who were around didn’t pull the bureaucratic “It’s not in my job description” routine.

Nevertheless, the federal yahoo looked these brave souls in the eye and said, “You didn’t follow FEMA rules.” They responded that they didn’t know the rules, that they were waist deep in dirt digging bodies out of the mud. The yahoo said that they should have called FEMA. The local officials informed Mr. Yahoo that the phones didn’t work.

Yahoo’s next bright idea came out. “Well you should have downloaded it off of the Internet. It’s on the website.” Apparently this one—like too many others—was not the brightest bulb in the bunch. When the local officials patiently explained that the place had no access to computers or the Internet, the yahoo looked at them incredulously as if to say, “not my problem.” He informed the officials that they should have downloaded the policies beforehand.

Mr. Not-So-Bright-Bulb didn’t take into consideration what life was like in Katrina’s aftermath. Between Katrina’s 135 mph or more winds blowing away so much during the three to four hours it battered the coast before the water came ashore and the 22 documented tornados, to say that homes and offices, businesses and schools were scattered to the winds may actually be an understatement in these circumstances.

What do you think? Would Mr. Not-So-Bright Bulb and his compassionless co-workers have said similar insane things to the survivors of India’s tsunami?

Compassionless. The word resonates with how the feds have treated us.

Mr. Not-So-Bright didn’t care that public officials were trudging through several feet of dirt throughout the area pulling out dead bodies ,dealing with a population in shock, all the while doing their best to take good care of their own families.

All I have to say about this is that my own family and friends down here may have been up to their eyeballs in dirt and dead bodies. But the real dirt bags came here as members of the Bush Administration’s compassionless crew.

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Katrina’s Bigger Picture

This is the fourth in a series of five to help the Democratic Party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, to get the framework right, to broaden its lens through which it views Katrina, what’s stopping recovery, what will speed up a vibrant recovery, and how Katrina affords us the opportunity to transform the basic quality of life for all Americans.

Clearly, the Democratic debate on PBS hit a bit of a raw nerve with me. The debate question and candidates’ answers reflected the framework for our national discussion, which has been too narrow, too tiny when discussing who Hurricane Katrina impacted and what the impact was, as well as the solutions offered. So let’s put on a lens through which we can see Katrina’s bigger picture.

First, Hurricane Katrina itself destroyed the Mississippi Gulf Coast. However, the New Orleans disaster was another matter. As so aptly stated on Levees.org, “New Orleans was destroyed primarily by bad engineering and not bad weather.”

Moreover, “[r]esponsibility for the levee failures on August 29, 2005, in New Orleans rests squarely on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on Congress. This means that the federal government bears primary responsibility for the flooding of metro New Orleans and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes and livelihoods.”

When Hurricane Katrina breached the levees in New Orleans, the floods indiscriminately drenched Republican and Democratic, wealthy, middle class, and low income homes and neighborhoods as well as every ethnic group in this international city. However, had the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers carried out its responsibilities, these New Orleans residents would have been spared this horrendous flood. To carry out their responsibilities, of course, requires financial resources as well as solid policy based on sound engineering and environmental principles.

The Washington Post reported

Bush repeatedly requested less money for programs to guard against catastrophic storms in New Orleans than many federal and state officials requested.

When disclosures like this came out in Katrina’s immediate aftermath, the Army Corps of Engineers defended the Bush Administration. "It was not a funding issue," said Carol Sanders, the chief spokeswoman for the corps. "It's an issue of the design capabilities of these projects." What a disingenuous though unsurprising answer since the Corps “worked closely with White House officials” on the responses to these tough, important questions regarding the Bush Administration’s responsibility in deliberately cutting the corps’ budget.

The Washington Post article continued.

Local and federal officials have long warned that funding shortages in the New Orleans area would have consequences. They sounded the alarm as recently as last summer [meaning 2005] when they complained that federal budget cuts had stopped major work on New Orleans east bank hurricane levees for the first time in 37 years. Al Naomi, the senior project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, reported at the time that he was getting only half as much money as he needed and that much of the funding was being used to pay contractors for past work.

"When levees are below grade, as ours are in many spots right now, they're more vulnerable to waves pouring over them and degrading them," Naomi told the Times-Picayune of New Orleans. Walter Maestri, the emergency management chief in Jefferson Parish (county), at the time linked the funding shortfall to the cost of the Iraq war. "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," he told the newspaper. Maestri added, "For us, this levee is part and parcel of homeland security because it helps protect us 365 days a year."

Indeed, if this city had had the kind of protection that the Netherlands has, my family members who live in the Big Easy would have had it easy after the storm. Here are pictures that demonstrate the difference between the levees in New Orleans and those in the Netherlands.

New Orleans Levees
Photos by National Geographic.

The repaired Industrial Canal levee wall in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward is green with new turf in July 2006 (top). The U.S. government says the city's levees are back at pre-Katrina conditions.A school bus sat stranded near a breach in the same levee on September 12, 2005 (bottom). The embankments were built to endure Category Three storms, yet several crumbled after Katrina's Category Three assault, perhaps as a result of poor design and construction.

Mario Tama / Getty Images file
Workers rebuild the levee along New
Orleans' Industrial Canal in the Lower
Ninth Ward

Netherlands Levees











Photo Credit: By Molly Moore -- The Washington Post Photo
Ted Sluyter, who organizes school tours of the Dutch sea defense system, says the calamitous 1953 flood bears clear parallels to the New Orleans disaster.

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) led a 40 member delegation from Louisiana to the Netherlands to tour the world's largest levee system.

"When the unprecedented disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the subsequent levee breaks struck Louisiana, the Netherlands was one of the first nations to come forward to offer their support," Sen. Landrieu said. "The Dutch know all too well the challenges we face, having lived for centuries under the threat from similar vulnerability themselves."

Protecting a world class city like New Orleans with a world class levee system like the Dutch have is what we need to do to protect this national treasure. A Netherlands-type of levee system will protect residents, neighborhoods, and businesses in New Orleans. That’s what homeland security is about. It is the smart, savvy, and environmentally sound thing to do. Plenty of good jobs and spin-off business will come from investing in this.

The wider view is that our nation will once again be demonstrating a commitment to investing in the best here at home for our own people, using information rooted in scientific fact.

The wider view still is something I learned from Levees.org. Twenty eight (28) states have at least 120 levees that are vulnerable to the same catastrophic failure New Orleans experienced. One hundred and twenty potential government-created environmental and economic disasters?! Holy Moly!

The spin off benefits of this kind of a levee system will be fantastic. What an awesome boon to our educational system alone with a renewed national commitment to math, science, and technology. Remember the seven-year old African American girl whom I had met at the Bay St. Louis library? She had proudly shared with me that she gets “A’s in math and science!”

With these kinds of projects in 120 areas across the country, little girls and boys in the surrounding areas would grow up with dreams of being engineers and scientists who work at world class facilities just down the street. This is a way we build great communities in which families can live, work, and play generation after generation after generation. What a concept, huh?!

Through the lens of the Katrina travesty, we have learned that we need to reform our national priorities to invest in world class levees in over half the states in our nation. We have also learned of another national problem requiring a national solution. Insurance carriers are jacking up premium costs or not covering homeowners here in Katrina Land . . . and all across the country.

Broadening Katrina’s Lens:
A five Part Series
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform

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Broadening Katrina's Lens

This is the first in a series to help the Democratic Party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, to get the framework right, to broaden its lens through which it views Katrina, what’s stopping recovery, what will speed up a vibrant recovery, and how Katrina affords us to transform the basic quality of life for all Americans.

Last week’s Democratic presidential debate really rubbed me the wrong way. From the question posed to the answers given, everyone just marched right along with a recitation of the media’s “one-size-fits-all” frame for discussing who Hurricane Katrina impacted, what that impact was, and a bevy of insufficient solutions offered as a result of this faulty way of viewing this catastrophe.

The one-size-fits-all approach goes something like this.

1. Katrina = New Orleans = levees.
   
2. Problems stemming from Katrina are the same for New Orleans, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and the areas Katrina impacted that were as far as 200 miles inland from the Gulf Coast.
   
3. Katrina impacted mostly the most poor among us, and they were primarily located in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana.
   
4. The ineptitude stemming from the Bush White House and FEMA comes out of a racist lens alone.
   
5. Solutions for the city of New Orleans and its levees will solve all the problems stemming from Katrina, which really are about Bush’s immense callous ineptitude about poor people who could not leave New Orleans before Katrina.
   
6. Talking about Katrina recovery in New Orleans is shorthand for talking about, addressing, understanding, and solving the multitude of issues regarding recovery for everything inside and outside of New Orleans.

Do these ring a bell? Of course, they do. The media played these images and talked only of New Orleans and the levees over and over again until they became seared in our brains. The framework became installed. Katrina = New Orleans = levees = racist/classist betrayal. Unfortunately, these are all, indeed, true, but the picture is incomplete and encourages otherwise intelligent individuals to ask questions that miss the mark and offer solutions that are insufficient to address all of the problems we face.

Let’s take last week’s debate as an example. NPR’s Michel Martin asked the following question to the Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Would you support a federal law guaranteeing the right to return to New Orleans and other gulf regions devastated by hurricane Katrina based on the United Nations human rights standards governing the internal displacement of citizens?

What?! Are you kidding me?! Invoking the United Nations? Look. What we need to invoke is the infamous phrase from the movie “Jerry McGuire”: Show me the Money! Show me the Money!

While Ms. Martin’s question was well-meaning, the question itself as well as the answers the Democratic hopefuls provided displayed an appalling ignorance of what is stopping cities from rebuilding their communities, hindering businesses from reopening their doors, and preventing people from returning to their homes, jobs, schools, places of worship, and lives.

Had the staff of NPR or the Democratic Presidential hopefuls been research savvy, they would have learned that Congressman Gene Taylor and U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu have put forth some incredible legislative initiatives to address real problems with real solutions such as expanding the flood insurance program to include all natural perils (H.R 920) and to close the anti-trust loop that has permitted the insurance companies to collude with each other legally (S.618).

Perhaps someone will forward various Democratic presidential campaign staffers this specific series or just turn them on to A.M. in the Morning!

God help us all. The Democrats have to get the framework right. We know that the ReTHUGlicans will be completely clueless—and care less about being clueless.

As Democrats, we agree that the preparation for Katrina and the recovery efforts in her aftermath are microcosms of and metaphors for the appalling absence of White House leadership since George W. Bush and Dick Cheney stole the 2000 presidential election and moved into our Oval Office in January of 2001. On that end of the analysis, we have agreement.

However, flushing out the specifics of the microcosms and metaphors requires more than sound bites that fit nicely with the overall theme of a candidate’s campaign or one’s political perspective on poverty, the environment, race, the Bush Administration, etc.

For example, continually boiling down the problems New Orleans faces only to repairing levees and the challenges in the 9th Ward alone misses the bigger picture and important elements for recovery in that city, in the Gulf Coast region, and in the nation.

By broadening our minds to take in the fullness of what encompasses the problems we face here, we can then see the great opportunities to recover this area far quicker and to make dramatic changes that will fundamentally improve the quality of our lives regardless of where we live. After all, every family wants to protect its greatest asset—home. When we fix what’s wrong with the recovery efforts here in Katrina Land, we’ll be protecting everyone’s home from sea to shining sea.

To do this, we must begin with a framework that works for Louisiana and Mississippi, for those inside of New Orleans and those outside of it, for those that Katrina directly impacted and for those that future natural disasters—tornado, flood, blizzard, mudslide, earthquake—will impact.

What’s wrong with our recovery has everything to do with the crisis in confidence we feel in our federal government, the White House, as well as our insurance corporations that are supposed to provide financial security for our family’s biggest investment: our home. Remedies for what ails the recovery efforts have already been introduced in Congress. Additional remedies will also come from the innumerable court cases that the Scruggs Katrina Group, The Merlin Group, and other lawyers who are successful in attaining a fair deal for their clients through dragging the insurance carriers to court for a bit of American justice.

In the meantime, it is important that we understand fully the true impediments to our recovery so that we can push our federal lawmakers to make changes that make a real difference for those inside and outside of the Katrina ravaged region of our nation.


Broadening Katrina’s Lens: A five Part Series

Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform

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When You’re Up to Your Ass in Alligators . . .

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Nine-foot gator caught near homes in Waveland

Geographically and culturally speaking, the Mississippi Gulf Coast shares a great deal with our neighboring South Louisiana region. Of course, the gnats and mosquitoes travel miles without regard to geography. The more exotic habitat such as alligators and the like in bayou country up the road is simply not part of the beach town ambiance.

So when a 9½ foot alligator was found in a ditch of three feet of water near a school bus stop in Waveland, Miss., I thought to myself, “what the $#%&!”


Here’s the deal. After Katrina, the state of Mississippi loaned the Gulf Coast’s cities $79 million for cleaning up the hurricane’s debris. Some of the cities on the eastern coastline have rebounded enough to recover the loan money from its tax revenues. That isn’t the case with Waveland and Bay St. Louis.

Of the $79 million, Waveland received a $4.5 million loan, my hometown of Bay St. Louis received an $8 million loan, and the Bay-Waveland school district received an $11.5 million loan. Those debts—plus interest—are due in October, barely two years after the nation’s worst natural disaster in our history demolished these cities. Remember, these were two of the three tiny beach towns that comprise Katrina’s ground zero.

What impact will the demand for the money have on these tiny coastal beach towns?

Waveland and Bay St. Louis won’t have the money to fix drainage problems. Today, Waveland has four public works employees; however it had 27 employees prior to Katrina. Without money, the drainage problems will persist. The real life consequences endanger everyone, including children. Regarding the alligator near the bus stop, Waveland Mayor Tommy Longo said "You think those parents weren't ticked?"

In Bay St. Louis “street paving projects and drainage work that would solve the city's flooding problems will be put on hold or canceled until the debt can be repaid, Mayor Eddie Favre said,” reported The Clarion-Ledger. The Bay won’t have money to hire police and firefighters or put up street lights either. You know, the basics for residential and business development.

In a debate on the House floor, Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) characterized the fiscal strength of “little towns like Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, that have no tax base because their stores were destroyed in the storm, a county like Hancock County, where 90% of the residents lost everything, or at least substantial damage to their home . . . .” [See the video. Quite an education in Republican tactics, priorities, and values.] Yet somehow the towns are supposed to come up with money for this epic-sized natural disaster cleanup. Part of the “you’re on your own” Republican view of government, I suppose.

Hold on there. Isn’t this one of the reasons we pay federal taxes?“What’s not happening here is indicative of a dysfunctional government, and that affects everyone. That’s why folks throughout the country should be concerned about the recovery process. We are all for a highly efficient, functional government, and what we have is its diametrical opposite.

“We are already paying the taxes for all the services you could hope to have available in emergency disaster situations like Katrina. And we’re not getting it. We have to take this back and hold the government accountable.”

— Michael Rosato, owner, Cinemagic Audio-Video.

The Bush Administration has not ensured that it is reimbursing Mississippi and Louisiana for its recovery costs. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA—that four letter word, again) is withholding the money. The administration insists that the towns and cities of Mississippi and Louisiana paid too much money to remove Katrina’s debris. When Bush vetoed the Iraq Accountability Act, he vetoed money for Katrina relief including waiving the matching requirement that is putting a great deal of unnecessary burden on the towns and cities in the Katrina-ravaged area.

How ironic that the White House that is hell bent on handing no bid multi-billion dollar contracts to the largest Bush-Cheney campaign contributors (i.e. Halliburton) would insist that in the days after Katrina, the areas impacted would have to go through a traditional bidding process complete with re-bidding should the cost be pricey.

The administration is noticeably silent on paying Riley Bechtel, another major campaign contributor, to transport FEMA trailers 70 miles at a gargantuan price of $16,000 per trailer. Yet, Bush’s FEMA is holding these city and county officials to a standard that is unfair given the extraordinary circumstances.

I’m a former management auditor for the state of Tennessee and the city of San Francisco, and we followed the Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS), also known as the Yellow Book. I fully agree that the traditional bidding process should be followed with very few exceptions. Clearly, the worst natural disaster in our history qualifies for this exception.

Heck, after 20 months of looking for a contractor to renovate our family home, we were ecstatic when we found someone. Yes, it would be very nice to have gotten several bids and negotiate hard like we would under regular circumstances. But these circumstances are soooooo out of the ordinary. We’re grateful to have someone whose work we trust, whom we feel is trustworthy, and who will get to it quickly.

Surely to goodness, with Bush’s FEMA being AWOL in Katrina’s wake, these towns and cities did the best they could.

St. Bernard Parish, La., just outside New Orleans, is among the communities waiting for a check. FEMA paid the parish about $100 million for debris removal but still owes about $70 million, said David Peralta, the parish's chief administrative officer. St. Bernard also is waiting for $30 million in reimbursement for sewer repairs, Peralta said.

Peralta said FEMA has "kind of implied" that it is looking into whether the parish paid reasonable rates. Peralta defended the Katrina contracts, saying officials tried
to solicit competitive bids without delaying the work.

"We didn't have a whole lot of choices in those first few days," he said.

Look, we have a great saying down here. When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember that the point was to drain the swamp. In this instance, Mississippi and Louisiana are painfully cognizant of all that needs to be done to restore the region to its pre-Katrina vibrancy including taking care of the drainage problems.

While the Bush Administration chooses to be caught up with the dumb ass—another colorful Southern phrase, we can choose to focus our attention on a few things at our fingertips that will help drain the political swamp in Washington, DC, particularly the White House.

You know what that means? It’s political hell-raising time! Molly Ivins would be so proud.

Cal your congressional representative and two U.S. Senators to request that they work with Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) and Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) to resolve this issue favorably on behalf of Katrina’s survivors.

Go here for phone script to use when calling your U.S. Senators. Go here for a letter to email. Here is a link to find contact information on your U.S. Senators.

Go here for phone script to use when calling your U.S. Congressional Representative. Go here for a letter to email. Here is a link to find contact information on your Congressional Representative.
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Decency in DC

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Republicans love to preach about morals and decency. Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on the importance of marital fidelity. Newt has admitted to cheating on his wife at around the same time the House was impeaching President Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Disgraced Republican Congressman Mark Foley resigned amid allegations that he himself had engaged in or attempted to engage in an inappropriate relationship with an under aged teen in the Congressional Page program. Foley had chaired the House caucus on missing and exploited children and was a champion of sexual predator legislation

Another fine example of a Republican behaving badly erupted on the House floor toward the end of March. This time it was all about what constitutes decency in Washington, DC.

Earning himself membership credits in the Bush–Shill-and-Mouthpiece-Club, Georgia Republican Congressman Tom Price took to the floor on March 27th to help stick it to the families struggling to put their lives back together after Hurricane Katrina. This compassionless conservative sought to restrict housing reconstruction funds for low-income families living in Katrina-ravaged areas of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans.

Price wanted to require the demolished local communities to raise matching funds before the Bush Administration provided financial assistance to these low-income Southern residents who are struggling today within horrendous conditions that federal dollars can help alleviate.

Mind you, there is NO tax base from which to raise monies for matching funds. Capiche?! None. Zip. Nada. Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor, whose district covers the entire Gulf Coast of Mississippi, eloquently informed Mr. Price of the dire circumstances of life after Katrina.

“. . . little towns like Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, that have no tax base because their stores were destroyed in the storm, a county like Hancock County, where 90% of the residents lost everything, or at least substantial damage to their home, he wants to punish Bay St. Louis, he wants to punish Waveland, he wants to punish Pass Christian for mistakes of the Bush dministration.”

[See the video. Quite an education in Republican tactics, priorities, and values.]

Price, an obvious compassionless conservative Bush crony, has not even had the decency to visit any of the many Katrina-ravaged communities. He is speaking without understanding what the situation is. Perhaps he doesn’t care what the situation is down here on the ground.

Nevertheless, he had the audacity to cloak his disdain for the good people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans through feigning concern for government waste, fraud and abuse. [Read: Investing federal tax dollars in rebuilding New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast is waste of money.] Since Democrats represent these good people in Congress, the people's house, Price's display of Republican charity reveals a partisan tinge. Price’s amendment failed in a 98-333 vote.

The first day I arrived here in Bay St. Louis, my younger brother drove me around to see what life is like some 19 months after the storm. Going down Beach Boulevard, he whipped into a dirt driveway and parked. This was the lot where Congressman Gene Taylor‘s home had been before Katrina destroyed it completely. In the back of the lot, new construction for a home was evident. Up the stairs we went. The Taylors were working on their home.Margaret Taylor, the congressman’s wife, told me that during the storm, they had gone to stay with family . . . and today that is where they remain.

The Taylors have received not one dime of insurance money. Not a dime.

As Margaret and I spoke, the congressman was busy hammering away. They are building their tiny home themselves literally. [See Sidebar: Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor—Sticks and Stones: Rebuilding Our Future] In front of Congressman Taylor's house is a hand-painted sign that express clearly his sentiments: “Allstate & State Farm, Axis of Evil.”




Congressman Gene Taylor's sign in his front yard of what used to be his home in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Photo by Ana Maria Rosato taken May 25, 2007.




So when an obtuse individual holding the power of a congressional office pretends to be concerned mostly that the families whose incomes, homes, jobs, and places of worship have been demolished by Katrina may engage in waste, fraud, and abuse rather than worrying about the families themselves, Taylor’s response becomes understandable.

Immediately, right there on the floor of the House of Representatives, Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor filleted Price expertly. [Watch the video.]

"If you want to look for Katrina fraud, look for the Katrina fraud that was perpetrated by the Bush administration. In south Mississippi at one point we had 40,000 people living in FEMA trailers, we're grateful for every one of them. But those trailers were delivered by a friend of the president by the name of Riley Bechtel, a major contributor to Bush administration. He got $16,000 to haul a trailer the last 70 miles from Purvis, Miss., down to the Gulf Coast, hook it up to a garden hose, hook it up to a sewer tap, and plug it in, $16,000. So the gentleman never came to the floor once last year to talk about that fraud.

* * * Mr. Price, I wish you'd have the decency, if you're going to do that to the people of south Mississippi, that maybe you ought to come visit south Mississippi, and see what has happened, before you hold them to a standard you would never hold your own people to, and that you fail to hold the Bush administration to."

Then Price had the nerve to demand that Taylor’s remarks be stricken from the record AND take away for the rest of the day, Taylor’s ability to speak on the House floor.

Why? Taylor used the word “decency.” That’s right. Price wasn’t concerned about the indecency of his own proposal. He wasn’t concerned about the indecent conditions that the good people living in Katrina ravaged country endure daily because of the Bush Administration's despicable and deliberate neglect.

Price was concerned with etiquette and courtesy extended to himself. As you watch the clip, notice how Price’s hissy fit over etiquette and courtesy ended up interrupting congressional action by well over an hour. His indecent proposal wasted time and money while insulting every family and business owner on the Gulf Coast and within the New Orleans area. Immediately, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced a motion to restore Taylor’s right to speak for the rest of the day, and Frank’s motion passed on a 265-160 vote. Republicans objected to the decency of restoring Taylor's speaking privileges. Afterall, Taylor actually knows first hand of Katrina's ravages and the suffering of families here on the ground. God forbid that they have to endure hearing how the federal government can be a force for good in the lives of these American families, business owners, communities.

Price should have been ashamed of himself for the indecency of demonstrating to the world his uninformed opinion and wholly uncompassionate position. It was Mr. Price who should have kept his own mouth shut for the remainder of the day.

He should have immediately made arrangements to take leave of absence from his office to come down here to see for himself what the situation is. Frankly, he should try living for weeks or months on end in one of those FEMA trailers. You may be thinking that these are house sized trailers. Surprise! They are more like camper trailers in which families and extended families have been living since the storm.

Personally, I am appalled at the indecency that the Bush Administration and its congressional cronies continually display. Decorum over decency, that’s what Price and his ReTHUGlican buddies advocated that day in March.

What everyone down here needs is decent leadership from a White House that will demonstrate it cares by moving heaven, hell, and earth to rebuild our communities, our towns, and our beloved New Orleans.

Rather than a lesson in congressional etiquette, Mr. Price, the folks down here need real federal leadership and federal money that actually gets where it was intended to go and does what it was intended to do. Since Price and some of his Republican buddies have no clue what to do to
rebuild with compassion, here’s a novel idea.

Ask Congressman Gene Taylor what it is going to take.

In the meantime, the rest of us can act on the advice that the great Molly Ivins provided. In her column Time to go long, Molly Ivins, another Southern hero of mine, said it best. "Sit up, join up, stir it up, get online, get in touch, find out who's raising hell and join them. No use waiting on a bunch of wussy politicians."

She must have had in mind politicians like Price.

From one hell raiser (yours truly) to the next (that would be you, dear beloved reader), how’s about calling your congressional representative to request that she/he seek Taylor’s advice on how to rebuild on the Gulf Coast and to collaborate with him. Heck, let's go one better and
provide Taylors' office number in Washington, DC. 202 225-5772. Most likely you'll be talking with a staffer when you call. Here's a script you can use. Look up here your representatives contact information.

Letting your fingers do the walking is an easy way to do an important and effective political activity. Call your reps and just ask them to listen to Congressman Taylor, because . . . it’s the decent thing to do.

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